Winter Music

by youwillhearmecall

Emma Bolland

… alone in this starless endless night …  to never hear the songs that made me dance …

David Peace from ‘1980’

And when we die and float away / Into the night, the Milky Way / You’ll hear me call, as we ascend / I’ll see you there, then once again…

From ‘Thank You For Being a Friend’, lyrics by Andrew Gold

‘We are echoing on the walls’ – guests at The Unruly Page, March 2013. Photograph: Tom Rodgers.

Released in 1978, the song ‘Thank You for Being a Friend’ was written by Andrew Gold, who recorded it for his third album, ‘All This and Heaven Too’. Fragments of the lyrics are strewn amongst the pages of David’s novel. Shaken free from the familiarity of the music, the interrupted refrain takes on an uncanny echo.  We learned and recorded the song in one session in the autumn of 2012, as the leaves fell from the trees, all of us singing & playing fiddle & guitar, in Tom’s front room. In the bone-cold gloom of this endless winter, I rework the recording, remembering all the calls that went unheard…

With thanks to Penny Whitworth and Brian Lewis for technical assistance. X